Normally the water itself here in China is enough to make your skin start to blister and peel and fall off, but in a shallow pool at Dianchi Chuntian, a wonderfully relaxing (and affordable) hot springs spa in Kunming, Yunnan Province, it's swarms of hungry fish that seek out your skin — the dead stuff, we were assured — and ingest it. It's meant to be healthy, for you and the fish.

Wikipedia tells us that these "doctor fish," or garra rufa, are popular in Turkish spas, and can be especially beneficial for people with psoriasis. (In Chinese the fish are called mei ti yu, 美体鱼, or "beautifying fish.")

The dead skin that flakes off the bodies of visitors to Dianchi Chuntian must be among the most delicious and nutritious in the world — because the fish in the pool are huge (compared to all photos we have seen, including Dianchi Chuntian's own pamphlets, that make the skin-eating fish look like tiny minnows). That didn't stop us from hopping in the pool, for some reason. And before long, we were up to our necks in water and fish ... and fish poop (all that delicious skin has to go somewhere). It tickles a lot at first, and then only kind of tickles after that. This is perhaps the only situation we can think of in which Speedos (or some other kind of skin-tight trunks) would be a good idea — we spent a lot of time trying to make sure fish didn't swim up our shorts.

A couple of questions you might be thinking:

Would we do it again?
Sure.

Is our skin healthier now?
We have absolutely no idea.

Can you drink beer while fish suck off your dead skin?
Yes. Budweiser. Big bottles (600 ml). Around 15 kuai, we think.

For those headed to Kunming, entry to Dianchi Chuntian is RMB 86 per person, which includes a whole bunch of hot springs, pools and tubs. You can stay as long as you want (the place doesn't close until 2 am), or you can rent a room (with your own hot spring). There are plenty of other add-on massages and treatments you can purchase (all priced reasonably) and it is very easy to spend an entire day at the spa. It's RMB 28 to become fish food. And yes, guys, there is a huge gold penis near your changing area. Here's the address, courtesy of GoKunming.com:

Dianchi Spring Spa
滇池春天温泉会馆
1290 Dianchi Lu
滇池路1290号
Tel: 8066094

For those of you stuck in Shanghai, SH tells us that you can find these fish at a place called Shanghai Orient Rome Bathhouse — a “super, five-star, large-scale place” — at 1420 Jiangning Lu, near Suzhou Creek (东方罗马浴场, 江宁路1420号). Tel: 6660 0666.

More photos here.

This week's Adoptable Pet from Second Chance Animal Aid, Shanghaiist's adopted animal charity. From the SCAA:

Jill is an adorable three-month-old brown tabby. She was just a few days old when she and her sister, Jackie, (now adopted) were discovered by two children playing just outside their compound. Their family already consisted of a cat, dog and a new baby, their mother contacted SCAA for help to bottle feed and rehome the kittens.

Unfortunately, the family that found Jill lived in the far suburbs of Shanghai and SCAA couldn't get the kittens into foster care until the next day. With Jill hungry and the family without formula, the mother suggested that she could share her breast milk. This was an excellent idea as breast milk is much more nutritious than cow's milk and since one of her three children was only four months old, she had some to spare.

Jill is now four months old and very sociable. She is constantly exploring and fascinated by running water. Jill has had her vaccinations and is ready to find a loving home.

SCAA Monthly Meeting is tonight! Details here. Second Chance Animal Aid (SCAA) is a private, non-profit organization and a community passionate about animals. SCAA promotes pet adoption with twice monthly adoption days and a foster care program (but it is not a shelter). You can help! Adopt a pet, become a foster parent or participate in SCAA's many great events. Go to www.scaashanghai.org to learn more. Shanghaiist is an official media partner of SCAA.

We told you about the "man-eating catfish" (which was actually a whale shark), the man with the world's largest hand, the two-headed freaks in China, the world's tallest woman Yao Defen, the world's tallest man Bao Xishun (who has since been overtaken by a Ukrainian) and the moment he met the world's shortest man He Pingping. Oh, and how could we have forgotten the world's hairiest man Yu Zhenhuan (who is also a rock-and-roll singer!). Now take a look at this Chinese mutant ninja chicken -- it has FOUR legs.

(Enter China freaks/pollution/mutants joke here.)

Pigs are back in the headlines once again, and with a vengeance. Here is an interesting juxtapose of three pig-related news stories found via the informative China Digital Times.

We first read on the Beijing News that a "Zero-Profit Pork Alliance" consisting of about 150 supermarkets in Chongqing that came together on Aug 10 in a bold move to slow down and reverse rising pork prices has all but collapsed:

The participating stores did surprise consumers with much reduced price tags for their pork products on shelf, running as low as 11.98 yuan/half kilo (or 1.1 pounds). The market pushed the same category of lean meat as high as 15.9 yuan/half kilo just days ago. The stores attracted customers with "zero-profit meat" posters, which were also costing the stores at least a thousand yuan in loss per store daily, let alone profits.

Moralism soon caved in, with many of the stores quietly pulling out of the zero-profit pact, restoring prices slightly back, although not to the all-time highs. Store managers expressed the difficulties in remaining in the cause, although none formally announced they were quitting. Chongqing's commerce authorities hope that the pact will be restored and said that the prices remain relatively high.

Also, it seems pork supply is so high on the priority list of the organisers of that all-important sporting event that is happening some time next year that they have set up 10 pig breeding centers located in different parts of China (one wonders what Muslim and Jewish athletes will eat). However, the locations of the Olympic pig breeding centers are kept entirely secret. "Pigs there are monitored, only fed organic crops, and have to exercise everyday. " According to Niu Shengnan, CEO of Beijing Qianxihe Group, which is the only supplier of frozen, fresh pork and pork products for the Beijing Olympics, the use of growth hormones in pig-rearing was "standard in China, but eating meat produced this way could conceivably cause competitors to fail anti-doping tests". Also:

Liu also said the pigs' feed has no preservatives. The immunization methods for the pigs include using natural herbs and Chinese medicine. To ensure the health of the pigs, they are arranged to exercise for two hours per day. Because no antibiotics are used for pig breeding, the growing period for these Olympics pigs are two to three months longer than common pigs. However, the Olympics pigs will not be sold cheap. Liu said the pork will be 40% to 50% more expensive than the market price.

Chinese bloggers have started to react to the idea of the secret steroid-free Olympic pigs. Blogger bbcjy writes:

The fact there are "Olympics pigs" tells us how serious our food safety issue is. The athletes cannot eat regular pork, otherwise they cannot pass doping tests. But how many people in this country can eat this special pork? The problem of athletes eating pork is resolved. What about the problem of pork eating for citizens in this country? What about our food safety problem? [Translation by CDT]

In the meanwhile, China Daily Times also informs us that the following phrase has been spreading quietly in the Chinese blogosphere:

宁做奥运猪 莫为井下人!
"I would rather be a pig for the Olympics than a human in a coal mine! "

Related links
China Daily Times: Zero-profit Pork Alliance Running Out of Moral Steam - The Beijing News
China Daily Times: Beijing Olympics Pigs: Secret Breeding and Special Supplies - ChineseNewsNet
China Daily Times: Bloggers' Reaction to Secret Steroid-free Olympics Pigs
Financial Times: Secret steroid-free pigs to go on the menu for athletes

Previously on Shanghaiist
Chinese scientists create glow in the dark pigs
Do you know what your pigs are eating?

Photo of pigs on the way to the slaughterhouse by MonkeyClaus.

Shandong Province's Qilu TV has struck yet again with another quirky news story featured in its daily news program last Thursday -- this time of a woman who starts barking like a mad dog after getting bitten by a mad dog. In the video clip, one sees the poor woman coughing, wheezing, panting and barking like a dog, seemingly uncontrollable. She has to be restrained with cables tied to the couch, which in turn is tied to a 20kg rock. Apparently, her husband has brought her to the hospital, but none of the doctors admitted her for fear that she might start attacking them other patients?

Shanghaiist isn't able to totally understand the dialect spoken on the video, but as much as we are able to make out of it, not once is rabies raised as a possibility for the mad woman's behaviour, and that is a tad strange if Qilu TV wants its daily news programme to be respected as a credible source of news? We also find it very disconcerting that they've added in silly sounds designed to make people laugh. After all, rabies is a fatal disease and certainly, with only six known cases of people surviving rabies after the onset of symptoms, one should not make light of the situation? Unless of course as some of the commenters here seem to think -- this news story and many others found on Qilu TV is a hoax?

Related links
Shanghaiist: Tit-tillating action on Qilu TV talkshow
Shanghaiist: Qilu TV: Man eats glass bottle

This week's Adoptable Pet from Second Chance Animal Aid, Shanghaiist's adopted animal charity. From the SCAA:

Jude is a one-year-old male cat found at a construction site three months ago where he had been surviving only on the scraps of food kind people left out for him. When his foster mom found him he was covered in motor oil. She took him home, but he wouldn't stop crying until she started to sing The Beatle's song, "Hey Jude". This quickly calmed him down and that is how he got his name, Jude.

He is a sweet, laid-back cat, always waiting by the door to greet his foster mom when she returns home. Jude then proceeds to "talk" telling her all about his day and demanding dinner. After dinner it is time to cuddle, curling up on her lap licking her hands and purring.

Jude is an entertaining little fellow, always finding a way to get your attention whether he wants to play or just hang-out. He is neutered and vaccinated. Jude is looking for a loving, permanent home; if he could find one with another cat that he could play with during the day – all the better! If you are interested in adopting Jude please contact: foster@scaashanghai.org.

Second Chance Animal Aid (SCAA) is a private, non-profit organization and a community passionate about animals. SCAA promotes pet adoption with twice monthly adoption days and a foster care program (but it is not a shelter). You can help! Adopt a pet, become a foster parent or participate in SCAA's many great events. Go to www.scaashanghai.org to learn more. Shanghaiist is an official media partner of SCAA.

OK, we all know about the Great Wall, the Great Firewall and the Great Green Wall. All that is old news now. Get this: China is now building a 6 million yuan, 40-kilometer (25-mile) long, 1 meter (3.3 feet) high wall around Dongting Lake in Hunan Province to guard against the 2 billion field mice that have been on the run from the flooded Yangtse River. Already, the mice have destroyed about 520,000 hectares (1.3 million acres) of crop land when rising water drove them from their burrows. And even the enterprising businessmen in Guangdong who sought to help by bringing the mice en masse to the dinner table did little to mitigate the situation.

Because of intensive farming and the use of anti-pest poisons, the populations of predators such as owls, snakes and weasels, have dwindled and China must now take time to build them. Some scientists have expressed doubt at the long-term effectiveness of the mice wall project. Said Wen Bo, director of the China program at Pacific Environment, a San Francisco-based conservation group:

Walls won't shield farmers from the next mouse plague... The wall is a symbolic gesture to quiet public concern... It's not going to work in the long run.

Yet, for farmers and villagers, some of whom have lost entire harvests of corn, peanuts and watermelon, the mice wall project seems like the best (and only) solution for now. Said one farmer, Zhang, 62:

Once they get the wall built, we'll be better off

It is highly likely that by the year 2020 (yes, that wonderful year when paradise would have come to earth), China will not only be a "harmonious society" at last but also possibly the world's most walled nation.

Related links
Shanghaiist: Not your run-of-the-mill rat race
Shanghaiist: How would ou like your rat done, sir?
Bloomberg: China Builds New Great Wall to Defend Against Mice, Not Mongols

Photo of stewed rat from Jan Chipchase.

Even as the majority of the domestic and international press crowned Inner Mongolia native and Shanghai resident Duo Zirong for her courage to stop the truck and "save" 800 cats from the food trade on July 7, dissenting voices have been raised with regards to the character of this women. And some have gone so far as to call her — as we have heard recently from those involved in various animal rescue organizations — more of a psychopath hoarder than a cat saviour.

Heated discussion about her motives and the real situation of the cats is now raging among local cat lovers, as you can read on this pet forum here, and here (both in Chinese). Many of these threads were started by trusted local animal rescuers we have known for years, and some latest reports from local volunteers include first-hand accounts that Duo's cats are now starving and some of the hungry cats are now eating dead cats.

This video filmed by local animal rescuers shows what her place really looks like. They say it is no more than a disease-ridden cat concentration camp. The video was taken on Jul 17, 10 days after she got the 800 cats, but nowhere in the video can you find more than 1,000 cats. As far as we know, 21 cats were moved away by volunteers from Petsky.com and 56 sickest ones by movshow.com volunteers, and about 100 sent to St. Antone veterinary hospital by Auntie Li, a local animal rescue worker. Volunteers who were in Duo's shelter say there were no more than 300 cats there, so where did the rest of hundreds of the cats go? Only Duo knows. In the video, she dismisses the possibility of feline panleukopenia (an acute viral infection of cats) breaking out in her shelter because “Buddha will protect me".

Shanghai-based Second Chance Animal Aid has a very clear stand on animal hoarders like Duo Zirong, as we read in their open letter to Duo:

Hoarding animals is a disease seen in China and around the world. It is often an obsessive-compulsive disorder that leads people to keep acquiring animals regardless of their inability to properly care for each and every one. In addition to well-meaning hoarders, there are people who hoard for more sinister reasons. Some hoarders have been actually fronts for the trade in cats and dogs for market. Some are ways to solicit money from unsuspecting donors.

Western veterinarians from PAW caution animal lovers who decide to adopt pets from hoarders to check their pets of the following diseases:

Malnutrition, dehydration, fleas, lice, ringworm (fungal skin infection), bacterial skin infection, ear mites, tapeworms, roundworms, Calici virus, Rhinotracheitis virus, Panleukopaenia virus, Chlamydia, FeLV, FIV, FIP, traumatic wounds including broken or damaged limbs, severe behavioural issues from mental trauma leading to uncontrolled urination, defaecation, anorexia, adypsia (not drinking).

As an aside, Duo has just received another truck of 480 cats on Jul 29, reported by Sina.com, and paid RMB 3,000 for it (not her own of course). Meanwhile, Nory Pet, a China-Swiss joint venture has decided to sponsor Duo Zirong in a kitty adoption event from August 4-31 at Longhua Lego Mall. While this may be good PR for Nory Pet, we do hope they conduct prior health checks for all the cats up for adoption that day.

Related links
SCAA: Carol Wolfson's Response to Duo Zirong's "Rescue" of Over 800 Cats in Shanghai, China
SCAA: All Hoarders Are Not Created Equal - A Unique SCAA Success Story
SCAA: An Open Letter to Animal Welfare Advocates on China’s Ms Duo Zirong and on Hoarding Animals